James Branch Cabell
| birth_place = Richmond, Virginia | death_date = May | death_place = Richmond, Virginia | death_cause = cerebral hemorrhage | alma_mater = College of William and Mary | life = | occupation = Author | movement = | genre = Fantasy fiction | notableworks = | influences = | influenced = }} James Branch Cabell (ˈ|k|æ|b|əl) (April 14, 1879 - May 5, 1958) was an American poet and prose author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Life Overview Cabell was well regarded by his contemporaries, including H.L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when they were most popular. For Cabell, veracity was "the one unpardonable sin, not merely against art, but against human welfare." Although Cabell's surname is often mispronounced "Ka-BELL", he himself pronounced it "CAB-ble." To remind an editor of the correct pronunciation, Cabell composed this rhyme: "Tell the rabble my name is Cabell." Family, youth, education Cabell was born into an affluent and well-connected Virginian family, and lived most of his life in Richmond.Cabells had settled in Virginia in 1664; Cabell's paternal great-grandfather, William H. Cabell, was Governor of the Commonwealth from 1805 to 1808. Cabell County in West Virginia is named after the Governor. James Branch Cabell's grandfather, Robert Gamble Cabell, was a physician; his father, Robert Gamble Cabell II (1847-1922), had an MD, but practiced as a druggist; his mother, Anne Harris (1859–1915), was the daughter of Lt. Col. James R. Branch, of the Army of the Confederate States of America. James was the oldest of 3 boys — his brothers were Robert Gamble Cabell III (1881-1968) and John Lottier Cabell (1883-1946). His parents separated and were later divorced in 1907. , Alexander Brown, Cabells and their Kin (1895) p. 573. Cabell matriculated at the College of William and Mary in 1894 at the age of 15, and graduated in June 1898. While an undergraduate, Cabell taught French and Greek at the College. According to his close friend and fellow author Ellen Glasgow, Cabell developed a friendship with a professor at the college which was considered by some to be "too intimate" and as a result Cabell was dismissed, although he was subsequently readmitted and finished his degree. Career Cabell worked from 1898 to 1900 as a newspaper reporter in New York City, but returned to Richmond in 1901, where he worked several months on the staff of the Richmond News. 1901 was an eventful year for Cabell: his earliest stories were accepted for publication, and he was suspected of the murder of John Scott, a wealthy Richmonder. It was rumored that Scott was involved romantically with Cabell's mother. Cabell's supposed involvement in the Scott murder and his college "scandal" were both mentioned in Ellen Glasgow's posthumously published (1954) autobiography The Woman Within. In 1902, 7 of Cabell's stories appeared in national magazines. Over the next decade he wrote many short stories and articles, contributing to nationally published magazines including Harper's Monthly Magazine and the The Saturday Evening Post, as well as carrying out extensive research on his family's genealogy. Between 1911 and 1913, he was employed by his uncle in the office of the Branch coal mines in West Virginia. On November 8, 1913, he married Priscilla Bradley Shepherd, a widow with five children from her previous marriage. In 1915, son Ballard Hartwell Cabell was born. Priscilla died in March 1949; Cabell was remarried in June 1950 to Margaret Waller Freeman. Cabell maintained a close and lifelong friendship with well-known Richmond writer Ellen Glasgow, whose house on West Main Street was only a few blocks from Cabell's family home on East Franklin Street. They corresponded extensively between 1923 and Glasgow's death in 1945 and over 200 of their letters survive. Cabell dedicated his 1927 novel Something About Eve to her, and she in turn dedicated her book They Stooped to Folly: A Comedy of Morals (1929) to Cabell. In her autobiography, Glasgow also gave considerable thanks to Cabell for his help in the editing of her Pulitzer Prize-winning book In This Our Life (1941). However, late in their lives, friction developed between them as a result of Cabell's critical 1943 review of Glasgow's novel A Certain Measure. During his life, Cabell published 52 books, including novels, genealogies, collections of short stories, poetry, and miscellanea. Cabell died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1958 in Richmond, and was buried there in Hollywood Cemetery. Writing Although escapist, Cabell's works are ironic and satirical. H.L. Mencken disputed Cabell's claim to romanticism and characterized him as "really the most acidulous of all the anti-romantics. His gaudy heroes ... chase dragons precisely as stockbrockers play golf." Cabell saw art as an escape from life, but once the artist creates his ideal world, he finds that it is made up of the same elements that make the real one. of Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice]] Jurgen Cabell's 8th (and best-known) book, Jurgen: A comedy of justice (1919), was the subject of a celebrated obscenity case shortly after its publication. The eponymous hero, who considers himself a "monstrous clever fellow," embarks on a journey through ever more fantastic realms, even to hell and heaven. Everywhere he goes, he winds up seducing the local women, even the Devil's wife. The novel was denounced by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice; they attempted to bring a prosecution for obscenity. The case went on for 2 years before Cabell and his publisher, Robert M. McBride, won: the "indecencies" were double entendres that also had a perfectly decent interpretation, though it appeared that what had actually offended the prosecution most was a joke about papal infallibility. The presiding judge, Charles Cooper Nott, Jr., wrote in his decision that "... the most that can be said against the book is that certain passages therein may be considered suggestive in a veiled and subtle way of immorality, but such suggestions are delicately conveyed" and that because of Cabell's writing style "... it is doubtful if the book could be read or understood at all by more than a very limited number of readers." Cabell took an author's revenge: the revised edition of 1926 included a previously "lost" passage in which the hero is placed on trial by the Philistines, with a large dung-beetle as the chief prosecutor. He also wrote a short book, Taboo, in which he thanks John H. Sumner and the Society for Suppression of Vice for generating the publicity that gave his career a boost. Due to the notoriety of the suppression of Jurgen, Cabell became a figure of international fame. In the early 1920s, he became associated by some critics with a group of writers referred to as "The James Branch Cabell School," which included such figures as H. L. Mencken, Carl Van Vechten and Elinor Wylie. Biography of the Life of Manuel A great deal of Cabell's work has focused on the'' Biography of the Life of Manuel, the story of a character named Dom Manuel and his descendants through many generations. The biography includes a total of 25 works that were written over a 23-year period. Cabell stated that he considered the ''Biography to be a single work, and supervised its publication in a single uniform edition of 18 volumes, known as the Storisende Edition, published from 1927 to 1930. A number of the volumes of the Biography were also published in editions illustrated by Frank C. Papé between 1921 and 1926. The themes and characters from Jurgen make appearances in many works included in the Biography. Figures of Earth tells the story of Manuel the swineherd, a scoundrel who rises to conquer a realm by playing on others' expectations —his motto Mundus Vult Decipi, meaning "the world wishes to be deceived." The Silver Stallion is a loose sequel to Figures of Earth that deals with the creation of the legend of Manuel the Redeemer, in which Manuel is pictured as an infallible hero, an example to which all others should aspire; the story is told by Manuel's former knights, who remember how things really were and take different approaches to reconciling the mythology with the actuality of Manuel. Many of these books take place in the fictional country eventually ruled by Manuel, known as "Poictesme," (pronounced "pwa-tem"). It was the author's intention to situate Poictesme roughly in the south of France. The name suggests the real French cities of Poitiers (medieval Poictiers) and Angoulême (medieval Angoulesme). Several other books take place in the fictional town of Lichfield, Virginia. After concluding the Biography in 1932, Cabell shortened his professional name to Branch Cabell. The truncated name was used for all his new, "post-''Biography''" publications until the printing of There Were Two Pirates (1946). ''The First Gentleman of America'' His later novel, The First Gentleman of America: A comedy of conquest (1942), retells the strange career of an American Indian from the shores of the Potomac who sailed away with Spanish explorers, later to return, be made chief of his tribe, and kill all the Spaniards in the new Virginia settlement. Cabell delivered a more concise, historical treatment of the novel's events in The First Virginian, part 1 of his 1947 work of non-fiction, Let Me Lie, a book on the history of Virginia. Critical reputation Michael Swanwick published a critical monograph on Cabell's work, which argues for the continued value of a few of Cabell's works—notably Jurgen, The Cream of the Jest and The Silver Stallion — while acknowledging that some of his writing has dated badly. Swanwick places much of the blame for Cabell's obscurity on Cabell himself, for authorising the 18-volume Storisende uniform edition of the Biography of the Life of Manuel, including much that was of poor quality and ephemeral. This alienated admirers and scared off potential new readers. "There are, alas, an infinite number of ways for a writer to destroy himself", Swanwick wrote. "James Branch Cabell chose one of the more interesting. Standing at the helm of the single most successful literary career of any fantasist of the twentieth century, he drove the great ship of his career straight and unerringly onto the rocks". Other book-length studies on Cabell were written during the period of his fame by Hugh Walpole,Walpole, Hugh, The Art of James Branch Cabell, New York, 1920 W. A. McNeill,McNeill, W. A., Cabellian Harmonics, Random House, New York, 1928 and Carl van Doren.Van Doren, Carl, James Branch Cabell, New York, 1925 Edmund Wilson tried to rehabilitate his reputation with a long essay in The New Yorker.Wilson, Edmund, "The James Branch Cabell Case Reopened", The New Yorker, April 21, 1956. Reprinted in The Bit Between My Teeth: a Literary Chronicle of 1950–1965 (1965), Macmillan, pp. 291–321. Interest in Cabell declined in the 1930s, a decline that has been attributed in part to his failure to move out of his fantasy niche despite the onset of World War II. Alfred Kazin said that "Cabell and Hitler did not inhabit the same universe". Quotations Quotes from Cabell's works * "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." — Coth in Cabell, The Silver Stallion * "... when I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No, Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are," — James Branch Cabell, The Cream of the Jest * "... For a book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual. It is by its publication as decisively severed from its author as in parturition a child is cut off from its parent. The book 'means' thereafter, perforce,—both grammatically and actually,—whatever meaning this or that reader gets out of it." — James Branch Cabell, "A Note on Cabellian Harmonics" in Cabellian Harmonics, April 1928 Quotes about Cabell by others * "In the early part of the 20th century, there was a fantasy writer named James Branch Cabell who had a theory of writing as magic. His books (highly recommended, especially Jurgen) are both funny and mythological ... and it's easy to see how his process of creating characters was really a process of evocation and invocation." — Philip H. Farber * "Once we understand the fundamentals of Mr. Cabell's artistic aims, it is not easy to escape the fact that in Figures of Earth he undertook the staggering and almost unsuspected task of rewriting humanity's sacred books, just as in Jurgen he gave us a stupendous analogue of the ceaseless quest for beauty. For we must accept the truth that Mr. Cabell is not a novelist at all in the common acceptance of the term, but a historian of the human soul. His books are neither documentary nor representational; his characters are symbols of human desires and motives. By the not at all simple process of recording faithfully the projections of his rich and varied imagination, he has written thirteen books, which he accurately terms biography, wherein is the bitter-sweet truth about human life." — Burton Rascoe * "I have finished Jurgen; a great and beautiful book, and the saddest book I ever read. I don't know why, exactly. The book hurts me — tears me to small pieces — but somehow it sets me free. It says the word that I've been trying to pronounce for so long. It tells me everything I am, and have been, and may be, unsparingly ... I don't know why I cry over it so much. It's too — something-or-other — to stand. I've been sitting here tonight, reading it aloud, with the tears streaming down my face ..." — Deems Taylor, Letter to Mary Kennedy, December 12, 1920 Recognition Cabell was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1937. In 1970, Virginia Commonwealth University, also located in Richmond, named its main campus library "James Branch Cabell Library" in his honor. In the 1970s, Cabell's personal library and personal papers were moved from his home on Monument Avenue to the James Branch Cabell Library. Consisting of some 3,000 volumes, the collection includes manuscripts; notebooks and scrapbooks; periodicals in which Cabell's essays, reviews and fiction were published; his correspondence with noted writers including H. L. Mencken, Ellen Glasgow, Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser; correspondence with family, friends, editors and publishers, newspaper clippings, photographs, periodicals, criticisms, printed material; publishers' agreements; and statements of sales. The collection resides in the Special Collections and Archives department of the library. The VCU undergraduate literary journal at the university is named Poictesme after the fictional province in his cycle Biography of the Life of Manuel. From 1969 through 1972, Ballantine's Adult Fantasy series returned 6 of Cabell's novels to print, and elevated his profile in the fantasy genre. Today, many more of his works are available from Wildside Press. Influence Cabell's work was thought of very highly by a number of his peers, including Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis, H.L. Mencken, Joseph Hergesheimer, and Jack Woodford. Although now largely forgotten by the general public, his work was remarkably influential on later authors of fantastic fiction. James Blish was a fan of Cabell's works, and for a time edited Kalki, the journal of the Cabell Society. Robert A. Heinlein was greatly inspired by Cabell's boldness, and originally described his famous book Stranger in a Strange Land as "a Cabellesque satire." A later work, Job: A comedy of justice (with the title derived from Jurgen: A comedy of justice), features Jurgen, an appearance of the Slavic god Koschei. Fritz Leiber's Swords of Lankhmar was also influenced by Jurgen. Charles G. Finney's famous fantasy, The Circus of Dr. Lao, was influenced by Cabell's work.Gary K. Wolfe, "The Circus of Dr. Lao" in Magill, Frank Northen,. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature, Vol 1. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Press, Inc., 1983.ISBN 0-89356-450-8 . (pp. 282-286). The Averoigne stories of Clark Ashton Smith are, in background, close to those of Cabell's Poictesme. Jack Vance's Dying Earth books show considerable stylistic resemblances to Cabell; Cugel the Clever in those books bears a strong resemblance, not least in his opinion of himself, to Jurgen. Cabell was also a major influence on Neil Gaiman, acknowledged as such in the rear of Gaiman's novels Stardust and American Gods. This thematic and stylistic influence is highly evident in the multi-layered pantheons of Gaiman's most famous work, The Sandman, which have many parallels in Cabell's work, particularly Jurgen. Publications Novels *''The Eagle's Shadow: A comedy of purse-strings. New York: Doubleday, Page, 1904; London: Heinemann, 1904. *The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck: A comedy of limitations. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1915; Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2003. *''The Cream of the Jest: A comedy of evasions. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1917; Gillette, NJ: Wildside Press, 2001 *''The Cream of the Justice / The Lineage of Lichfield: Two comedies of evasion''. New York: Ballantine, 1971. *''Jurgen: A comedy of justice'' . New York: R.M. MacBride, 1919; London: John Lane, 1921; Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2002. *''Domnei: A comedy of woman-workship''. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1920; Gillette, NJ: Wildside Press, 2001 **''Domnei / The Music behind the Moon: Two comedies of woman-worship''. New York: Ballantine, 1972. *''The Cords of Vanity: A comedy of shirking''. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1920; Gillette, NJ: Wildside Press, 2001. *''Figures of Earth: A comedy of appearances''. . New York: R.M. MacBride, 1921; London: John Lane, 1921; Gillette, NJ: Wildside Press, 2001 **(with introduction by Lin Carter). New York: Ballantine, 1970. *''The High Place: A comedy of disenchantment''. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1923; Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2003 **(with introduction by Lin Carter). New York: Ballantine, 1970. *''The Silver Stallion: A comedy of redemption''. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1926; London: Unwin, 1983; New York: Ballantine, 1969; New York: Wildside Press, 2015 **(with introduction by Lin Carter). New York: Ballantine, 1969. *''Something about Eve: A comedy of figleaves''. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1927; New York: Ballantine, 1971; Gillette, NJ: Wildside Press, 2001. *''The Way of Ecben: A comedietta involving a gentleman''. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1929. *''The Nightmare Has Triplets'' **''Smirt''. New York: R.M. McBride, 1934. Smith: A sylvan interlude. New York: R.M. McBride, 1935. **''Smire: An acceptance in the third person''. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Doran, 1937. *The Heirs and Assigns trilogy **''Hamlet Had an Uncle: A comedy of honor''. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1940; London: John Lane, 1940; Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2015. **''The King Was in His Counting House: A comedy of common sense''. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1938; London: John Lane, 1938; Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2003. **''The First Gentleman of America: A comedy of conquest''. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942; London: John Lane, 1942. *The It Happened in Florida trilogy **''The St. Johns: A parade of diversity'' (with Albert Jackson Hanna). New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1943. **''There Were Two Pirates: A comedy of division''. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1946; London: John Lane, 1947; Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2003. **''The Devil's Own Dear Son''. New York: Farrar Straus, 1949; London: John Lane, 1950. Short fiction *''The Line of Love: Dizain des mariages'' (illustrated by Howard Pyle). New York & London: Harper, 1904; Gillette, NJ: Wildside Press, 2001. *''Chivalry: Dizain des reines''. New York & London: Harper, 1909; Gillette, NJ: Wildside Press, 2001. *''Beyond Life: Dizain des demiurges''. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1919; Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2003. *''The Certain Hour: Dizain des poëtes. London: MacBride, Nast, 1917; New York: R.M. MacBride, 1920; London: John Lane, 1931; Doylestown, PA: Wildside Press, 2002. *''Straws and prayer-books: Dizain des diversions. New York: R.M. McBride, 1920; Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2003. Non-fiction *''Branchiana; being a partial account of the Branch family in Virginia''. Richmond, VA: printed by Whittet & Shepperson, 1907. *''Branch of Abingdon; being a partial account of the ancestry of Christopher Branch of "Arrowhattocks" and "Kingsland" in Henrico County, and the founder of the Branch family in Virginia''. Richmond, VA: printed by Wm. E. Jones' Sons, 1911. *''Let Me Lie; being in the main an ethnological account of the remarkable commonwealth of Virginia and the making of its history''. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1947; Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2001. *''Quiet Please'' (memoir). Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1952. *''As I Remember It: Some epilogues in recollection''. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1955; Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2003. Collected editions *''Works''. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1927-1930. *''Between Dawn and Sunrise: Selections from the writings''. New York: R.M. MacBride, 1930. Letters *''Special Delivery: A packet of replies''. New York: R.M. McBride, 1933; London: P. Allen, 1934. *''Between Friends: Letters of James Branch Cabell, and others'' (edited by Padraic Colum & Margaret Freeman Cabell). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962. *''Letters'' (edited by Edward Wagenknecht). Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:James Branch Cabell, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, May 29, 2015. See also *List of U.S. poets References * * |chapter=James Branch Cabell: No Fit Employment for a Grown Man |editorlink=Darrell Schweitzer |editor=Schweitzer, Darrell |title=Discovering Classic Fantasy Fiction |location=Gillete, NJ |publisher=Wildside Press |year=1986 |pages=49–55}} * * * * Fonds Significant Cabell collections are housed at various repositories, including Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia. *James Branch Cabell at Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries Notes External links ;Poems *''Post Annos'' in Poetry: A magazine of verse *2 poems at Read Online: "Ballad of Plagiary," "Ballad of the Double-Soul" ;Audio / video *Who is James Branch Cabell? (VCU Libraries YouTube) ;Books * * *Domnei (Google Books) *Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice (Internet Archive) *''Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice'' (University of Virginia) *The Cream of The Jest (University of Wisconsin) *Chronology of James Branch Cabell's Published Works * *James Branch Cabell at Amazon.com ;About *James Branch Cabell in the Encyclopaedia Britannica *James Branch Cabell at NNDB *Cabell, James Branch (1879-1958 at the Encyclopedia Virginia *James Branch Cabell Gallery (VCU Libraries Flickr) *James Branch Cabell *Mundus Vult Decipi *The Silver Stallion Category:1879 births Category:1958 deaths Category:American autobiographers Category:American fantasy writers Category:Burials at Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia) Category:College of William & Mary alumni Category:People from Richmond, Virginia Category:Writers from Virginia Category:American male novelists Category:20th-century American novelists Category:Deaths from cerebral hemorrhage Category:20th-century poets Category:American poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets